Take Five With Dan Krimm

This article was updated on September 22, 2025.

Meet Dan Krimm:

Progressive/contemporary jazz fretless electric bass guitarist and composer. I was most active in the '80s and early '90s leading my own bands and recording two albums (re-released in 2011). I also produced a final concert, recorded and videotaped in 1993, and mastered/released for the first time in 2013 (see video below). Released a trio album with my friend Gary Monheit in 2016 with new original tunes by both of us. Most recently released a new solo album in 2025. Still play avocationally.

Instruments:

5-string fretless electric bass guitar. (Informally: nylon-string 6-string guitar, for relaxation and composing. Not performance quality.)

Teachers and/or influences?

Jaco Pastorius set the technical standards, but I have my own personal voice. I did take a couple lessons from John Scofield. I also had classical training on violin through high school.

I knew I wanted to be a musician when...

I've been musical early on, but the decision to try for a career came at the end of college after I had gotten from zero to 60 in about three years. I figured I had enough momentum to make a real go of it.

Your sound and approach to music:

I play an electric instrument, but I don't get into electronics (i.e., signal processing). I have a very analog approach, which is inspired by acoustic/upright bassists as much as electric bass guitarists. In a previous band as a leader, I stretched into lots of chord-playing, and I've always had a melodic approach to soloing. My favorite upright players are Eddie Gomez and Harvie S.

Your teaching approach:

I never really got into teaching much. One thing about electric bass: there are many different ways to play the instrument, and many different kinds of music to play with it. I was self-taught—I learned violin formally, and that taught me how to learn an instrument. I applied what I knew on violin and taught myself on bass.

Your dream band:

Too many to choose from!

Here's just one sample: Myself on fretless electric bass guitar; Wayne Shorter on tenor and soprano sax; John Scofield or Bill Frisell on guitar; Herbie Hancock or Keith Jarrett on piano; Airto Moreira playing drum set and percussion.

Road story: Your best or worst experience:

I was playing a club date at a social club at an Ivy League campus, just in the corner of the living room area (no stage). While I was soloing an alumnus sidled up to me and was interrupting me, trying to give me his business card to hire us for some other gig. Cognitive dissonance: the guy—who had evidently had a few drinks—apparently liked our music, but had utterly no respect for what we were doing musically!

Favorite venue:

I've been fortunate to have played twice at Yoshi's in Oakland, CA, and every aspect of the experience was top-shelf and classy. They have a great stage monitor setup so we could all hear each other very well. We were able to concentrate on making music instead of struggling to hear through an imperfect sound setup. The house sound was very good too, as were the room acoustics and line of sight. We had mostly invited audiences, so the crowds were great, and it was full enough that most tables had at least one person, but not so crowded as to be claustrophobic. The venue had good nights business-wise both times, so they were happy. Good vibes all around.

Just a total class act, what a pleasure.

Your favorite recording in your discography and why?

I'm just now releasing a new recording of new original tunes, and for this one I didn't cut corners in production. Worked at a top-shelf studio with top-shelf engineering, and took the time to finesse the editing and mixing so that it really shows off the band and the tunes at their best.

The first jazz album I bought was:

Adventures in Time (Columbia, 1971) a 2-disk compilation of odd-meter tunes by Dave Brubeck.

What do you think is the most important thing you are contributing musically?

A personal voice on my instrument and as a composer.

CDs you are listening to now:

Not listening to much music right now.

Desert Island picks:

Can't pick, too many.

How would you describe the state of jazz today?

On life support, and yet it manages to endure because the music speaks very deeply to those people it does speak to.

What are some of the essential requirements to keep jazz alive and growing?

I don't have any silver bullets, but it seems to me it's an uphill battle, in a market where recordings don't make the same revenue from streaming as they did in the age of physical sales or even digital downloads. Live performance is essential, and really, the heart and soul of the experience. But not everyone can make that add up consistently. I think at this moment, simply passion for the music on the part of the musicians and the audience keeps it going out of sheer force of will.

What is in the near future?

I'm reemerging after a somewhat dormant period, and hoping to get back to more playing in the local area, focusing chiefly on original music (either my own, or others'). I've reached a modest retirement, and can do it on my own terms now. It has to be fun, or else I won't do it.

What's your greatest fear when you perform?

If the band isn't well enough rehearsed, I might be wary of mistakes interrupting the flow of the music. But that's increasingly a less common occurrence.

What song would you like played at your funeral?

I had something more specific in mind in the past, but now I think just generally: something calm, nourishing, a little trancelike, to give attendees some closure and celebrate the fulfilling things in life. Almost certainly instrumental.

What is your favorite song to whistle or sing in the shower?

Changes according to mood and what's in my head. Sometimes just a bass groove or some earworm picked up from who knows where. Some of those earworms are deadly! God help me.

By Day:

Retired, and blessed with much freedom to flow from the inside in the moment.

If I weren't a jazz musician, I would be a:

Zombie. I am a jazz musician. Whether I am making a living at it or not, whether I am doing it frequently or not.

I've been involved in technical fields (online services) and public policy along the way, and those were fairly fulfilling, but never really my primary calling.

My goal is to be as authentically human as possible. So if I weren't a jazz musician I'd be simply a human being.

If I could have dinner with anyone from history, who would it be and why?

Difficult choice. Maybe Albert Einstein (with the stipulation that he'd be up to date on the latest physics developments. I have questions where I'd love to hear his answers!). Also, he was a devoted amateur violinist, and I suspect we would have plenty of things to discuss regarding music.

If I could go back in time and relive an experience, what would it be?

Not particularly interested, unless it could be an opportunity for a do-over to make better choices than when I was younger (perhaps with the benefit of experience that I've gained in the interim). Can I change my timeline?

What's the song or piece of music you wish you could hear again for the first time?

Not something I really think about. I can get a very similar experience in the present, because that first-hearing experience remains part of the memory when hearing it again (for example, "Spain" from the Light as a Feather album by Return to Forever—it's still almost as exciting for me as that first time!).

What inspires you about making music?

My music, both the composing and the performing, emerges from the deepest parts of me. For all of the structure that goes into learning an instrument, theory, notation, once those skills are internalized, the real spirit comes from some other place that is unstructured. When that spirit can be unleashed in an intuitive manner, there is a kind of joy that is hard to match in other ways. When a band is in the flow of the moment, it's a special kind of transcendence.

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